I think the goal was force venders to copy Sega’s code for doing the API call and that triggered the screen to display a trademark in order to unlock the consol

I think the goal was force venders to copy Sega’s code for doing the API call and that triggered the screen to display a trademark in order to unlock the console for use. So they were hoping to trigger several different sorts of legal issues, to cover more countries differing legal codes and restrictions.